Johan&Nyström - Photo by Emanuele Lugli

Johan&Nyström - Photo by Emanuele Lugli

Sanna-Lisa Gesang-Gottowt - Photo by Emanuele Lugli

Dalahäst - Photo by Emanuele Lugli

Johan&Nyström - Photo by Emanuele Lugli

Dalahäst - Photo by Emanuele Lugli

In 1930, in Stockholm, most of the profits from the international exhibition held then came from the sale of a small wooden horse, which was produced in the central Dalarna region and decorated in a brilliant range of colours. Called the Dalahäst, the toy is one of the symbols of Sweden. If you walk along Drottninggatan, the main shopping street in the city – it connects the area of the large department stores to the picturesque island of Gamla Stan – you can’t help bumping into millions of reproductions large and small. To the distracted eye of the tourist, the Dalahäst is the Swedish Leaning Tower of Pisa.

So it comes as no surprise that the artistSanna-Lisa Gesang-Gottowt, whom I met in Johan & Nyström’s café, has taken the Dalahäst as the focus of her artistic work. Art has been excited about pop, toys and tourism for decades. But Sanna-Lisa’s work is much broader in scope. In brief, it divides into three phases.

The first is already complete: it consists of Dalahäst heads attached to wooden shields – as if they were stuffed trophies. "I hung them through the streets of Stockholm, in places where it’s difficult to get to, so they could create something unexpected." (It’s not the first time that Sanna-Lisa has exhibited in the street. One of her recent works involved her painting furniture she found in rubbish bins in brilliant colours; a way of highlighting what we throw away – which includes discarded domestic love.)

In the second phase (currently in preparation), the Dalahäst will be flattened like a skin to put under the table in the living-room. The third – which is currently only in the artist’s head – will transform the Dalahäst into a My Little Pony, as if the little Swedish horse had been transformed into a mass success.

The horse’s metamorphoses are interesting in themselves. But Sanna-Lisa aims to give a clear message about the state of Swedish today. "We’re seen as this perfect country and in the past the Swedish 'social welfare' system has actually been used as a model by much of the world. But the country has changed significantly. During the years I spent in Portland (Sanna-Lisa studied at Marylhurst University), I came to understand how the Americans see the Swedish social model and how Swedes see the American." The Dalahäst then could be interpreted as the commodification of a defunct social system which now functions only as a tourist knick-knack, like the toys and the trophies of the past (or like all three things together, since after all tourism celebrates the glories of the past).

"The system here is becoming something else: the individual is no longer the centre of interest. I understand that when you have a generous system there is always someone who takes advantage, but when you are overly cautious, the people who suffer the most are the vulnerable and the weak. Just the other day, for example, I was reading how a young mother was refused help because she’s an immigrant – she’s now on the streets."

This brings us back to the public space, the heart of the matter. "In Stockholm, for example, you can’t touch anything in the street. It’s like a museum, designed now simply for tourists. And so there’s zero tolerance for graffiti or street art." Exhibiting outside is therefore a way of saying: "ok, you want the city to be like a museum? There you go.” But, as she says, “it’s also a way of shaking it up a bit."

Sanna-Lisa though doesn’t think of herself as a street artist. “I make art and that’s it. To be honest, I also have difficulty labelling myself as an artist, because of the prejudices that people have (if that’s how you define yourself, they immediately think that you’ll behave in a certain way). But at the same time, I feel pressure from people who want me to conform to stereotyped definitions. ‘So, do you exhibit in the streets or in galleries?" they often ask me. "What difference does it make?" I say.”